My point still stands, it would be slower. (not that I'm even sure your suggestion is possible, because I don't think it is.)

It would just slow pvp, not reduce lag. Distnce is a factor, but it is only 1 of many. Just like all the others, it can make a difference alone, but it is often a combination of things. not everyone has great internet avalaible, some people share their connection with other people (if my room mate was on netflix I had laggy matches more often) Sometimes a storm is screwing with someones satallite connection, finiky routers cause problems.

There are a lot of potential issues to cause lag, region locking wouldn't fix anything, but it would limit te player pool, which would slow invasions considerably.

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You really have to take the good with the bad on stuff like that. When you look at a game community, fragmentation and segregation are typically the greatest enemies to sustaining a large and long lasting community. Typically, the pool of dedicated players in a community that is long lasting are quite resilient when it comes to a game's idiosyncrasies such as lag, glitches and bugs, and tend to adapt and develop workarounds over the course of the game's life.

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Not sure its possible without servers. I know you can specify connection strength preferences for matchmaking in some games (again, halo does it) but I think it requires servers, otherwise it would take up the systems processing power, which would make lag worse.

I wouldn't set blanket requirements, because just as its not fair for a lag spike to cost you a match, its not fair to deny someone a huge aspect of the game because they don't meet a connection speed requirement.

There isn't a way to make everyone happy here, so the company opts for the option that includes everybody (which preserves their sales)

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Forum Pirate wrote:Not sure its possible without servers. I know you can specify connection strength preferences for matchmaking in some games (again, halo does it) but I think it requires servers, otherwise it would take up the systems processing power, which would make lag worse.

I wouldn't set blanket requirements, because just as its not fair for a lag spike to cost you a match, its not fair to deny someone a huge aspect of the game because they don't meet a connection speed requirement.

There isn't a way to make everyone happy here, so the company opts for the option that includes everybody (which preserves their sales)

I guess thats fair enough. Glad they are continuing with that rule actually, I'm looking forward to the easy mode in the next Souls game, it will make it much more fun when it eventually comes out! Just hope they iron out the kinks in their game engine first though!

I also like being able to play with people all over the world, regardless 90% of my matches with people from Asia(and not as much but also Europe) are extremely laggy. I know it is not my connection, and it probably isn't even theirs. It is just that massive distance, and the not so amazing P2P servers. I would at least like an option to only play with people from my region, and also to be matched better with people who have a good connection.

The lag in dark souls is worse then a lot of other online games, it is in need of improvement. There is no doubt about that.

FruitPunchNinja wrote:I also like being able to play with people all over the world, regardless 90% of my matches with people from Asia(and not as much but also Europe) are extremely laggy. I know it is not my connection, and it probably isn't even theirs. It is just that massive distance, and the not so amazing P2P servers. I would at least like an option to only play with people from my region, and also to be matched better with people who have a good connection.

The lag in dark souls is worse then a lot of other online games, it is in need of improvement. There is no doubt about that.

Exactly, after 5 minutes of tests on Speedtest, I can happily say my connection is not at fault. An average ping within the UK gets me 24ms with a download of 30Mbps and upload of 3Mbps.

As soon as its outside the UK it starts to increase ping times, which is exactly what a person would expect to see.

I expect my games to have low ping, even on wow I was expecting 50ms or less in everything but the big multiplayer events. On something like DkS where a splitsecond reaction is required to win a fight, once you get over that 50ms (and let alone to the 200-300 pings that seem average) you cannot anticipate attacks as you would normally, you have to guess when people are going to make an attack, because when you see them begin to swing, they have already hit you on their screen.

Of course with packet and network shaping and optimisation From can try to compensate but it still can't match a simple fight between 2 people with good connections.

I also refuse to believe that Dark Souls is so unpopular that almost no one in the UK is playing it.

I do believe however that the people who are claiming to have some of their best matches against people from the opposite side of the world, are unfortunate in that they have experienced even worse lag then I am willing to accept but have taken it to be the norm, and so these games around the world with ping's in the hundreds seem relatively lag free.

My suggestions will not destroy organised PVP, or make it impossible to invade people, or even impossible to be invaded. It will just remove the biggest factor in random lag-stabbing invasions, the massive distance between people.

So be it region locking for random invasions, or a simple ping test before an invasion is begun, either of these options will do nothing but improve the play experience of Dark Souls.

There are about 15 people (from the UK) on this forum in total who play Dark Souls. I know there are probably about 200 minimum across the UK who play it however how many of those 200 are you willing to bet are gankers etc; I enjoy fighting ganks but that would also mean I only get to duel with the same 30-ish people and invade the same 170 gankers, everyone would adapt to each other and the game would become boring - it would also rely upon everyone being in the same location etc;

I think 200 is a very low figure, also people seem to forget that a lot of people including myself, never pvp'd unless we were invaded or played offline, people enjoy the PvE aspect a lot, and the silent majority is often forgotten or ignored.

Onion Knight wrote:I think 200 is a very low figure, also people seem to forget that a lot of people including myself, never pvp'd unless we were invaded or played offline, people enjoy the PvE aspect a lot, and the silent majority is often forgotten or ignored.

Exactly if DkS had only sold a couple of thousand copies in the UK then we would have no chance of seeing a sequel anyway. If that was the case From would have no choice but to make the game more appealing for the larger public.

I also think that if the silent offline majority could have lag free pvp invasions they would be far more inclined to actually go online!

Onion Knight wrote:I think 200 is a very low figure, also people seem to forget that a lot of people including myself, never pvp'd unless we were invaded or played offline, people enjoy the PvE aspect a lot, and the silent majority is often forgotten or ignored.

Exactly if DkS had only sold a couple of thousand copies in the UK then we would have no chance of seeing a sequel anyway. If that was the case From would have no choice but to make the game more appealing for the larger public.

I also think that if the silent offline majority could have lag free pvp invasions they would be far more inclined to actually go online!

It probably wouldn't. The reason I dislike PvP is because that the game isn't balanced for it whatsoever, which is fine. I enjoy the greater emphasis on the core PvE, I also dislike the PvP interaction, it just seems to me like on giant e-p**** comparison competition, which just reminds me of my school days. Not saying that I'm the majority of PvE'rs by any means, but I doubt any changes to connectivity would bring that many people into the online world.